


Which Yet Survive

by dellaluce



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-19
Updated: 2010-05-19
Packaged: 2017-10-09 14:18:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/88373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dellaluce/pseuds/dellaluce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She takes him by the hand through the winding streets of a city left to dust.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Which Yet Survive

**one.**

|PESTERLOG|  
\-- ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] --

EB: hey, rose just told me you're going through the gate.  
EB: did you make it?  
EB: dave?  
\--turntechGodhead [TG] is now an idle chum! --  
EB: dave, answer me please.  
EB: seriously, dave. this isn't funny.  
TG: jesus christ calm down  
TG: im here  
TG: fan yourself before you get the vapors or some shit  
EB: haha, man! you had me scared for a minute.  
TG: yeah sorry  
TG: im fine  
TG: landed on my keys or something  
EB: what's it like?  
TG: fucking hurts  
EB: no, jade's medium!  
EB: i can only see her house.  
TG: oh well  
TG: lets see if i can channel charles dickens or some other literary behemoth  
TG: because i dont have the vocabulary to describe it  
TG: oh wait  
TG: yes i do  
TG: ITS FUCKING SAND  
EB: hehehehe  
TG: no stop that  
TG: this shit isnt funny  
TG: i have sand in places i didnt know existed until they started chafing  
TG: its like i reached into satans grab bag and pulled out a fistful of death valley  
TG: then immediately shoved it in my pants  
EB: well...  
EB: i guess just stay inside until we get there?  
TG: thats just it though  
TG: she wants to go out and explore or whatever  
EB: does she have horses?  
TG: what?  
TG: maybe  
TG: i dont know  
TG: arent you the better person to ask anyway  
TG: oh fuck me  
TG: youre setting me up for a shitty movie reference  
EB: well, you're going on a trek across the desert!  
TG: this isnt even close to a trek  
TG: im not going to start keeping a log  
TG: or develop homoerotic feelings for compatriots  
TG: this is just me and jade wandering out into lucifers vacation resort  
EB: oh man, that's how it starts. it's all fun until you have to eat locusts and rescue the sheik's daughter.  
TG: oh god no  
EB: you're going to be like frank t. hopkins, american legend.  
TG: if i start hearing the swell of inspirational music against a fucking horse montage or something  
TG: or if i turn into viggo fucking mortensen  
TG: i will just slit my throat along my chiseled jawline from ear to grizzled ear  
EB: or maybe you'd just get inspired!  
TG: god  
TG: look  
TG: as much as id like to spend approximately forever hating your terrible taste in movies  
TG: jade is bugging me  
TG: so id better go before she starts snoring dirt  
EB: say hi to her for me!  
EB: and dave?  
EB: i'm glad you're okay.  
TG: sure

\-- ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] –-

**two.**

She takes him by the hand through the winding streets of a city left to dust, shows him all the things she's drawn out already: a residential district, sweeping long and sad into the lowlands with row upon row of bomb-split houses; a business district with its rusted metal skeleton stretching out to meet the sunsick orange sky; a courthouse, an empty swimming pool, a park. It takes all day for her to exhaust her jumbled mental maps and it's still not enough, because he has to tell her to slow down, to sit down, to take a break before she hurts herself. They sit and share water under the corrugated overhang of a broken bus stop, and that's all the rest she needs before she has him by the hand again.

The first thing they discover together is a library. Jade loves the way the marble columns of the portico reach up and up and up, so he relents, lets her fingers slip from his as she runs off to balance on a balustrade with arms spread like wings. He's almost ashamed of how easily he settles into his role, but as she's peering through dirt-caked windows and walking through shadows, he's the one watching heat shimmers, waiting for them to part like an oil-slick for monsters. When the library doors whip open, belching out a cloud of yellowed paper chased by a shriek and a peal of laughter, his heart jumps into his throat, his sword gripped and poised, before he realizes it's just her.

She wants to go in, begs and pleads and smiles and all but drags him in herself; he wants to keep moving, to cover as much ground as possible before they head out.

He wins, but only because he's not even done talking when she bolts down the sidewalk, chasing after a page that keeps snapping out of her reach.

She's out of breath when he catches up to her, panting but grinning like nothing had ever been more fun, or more important, even though her hands are empty and her prize is gone. He gives her a once over, checks to make sure she's not meeting the basic requirements of dying, and presses his lips into a hard line.

“Yeah, so, that was fun and everything, but if we're done with accomplishing jack shit, maybe we could head back,” he says. She doesn't wilt like he expects her to, just takes a few bounding steps ahead, twirling in the light and the dust with her eyes closed until her steps stumble and her world spins into him.

He has her by the wrists to keep her from falling, her skin kissed with a little sunburn where she'd rolled up her sleeves; she looks up at him, wobbles, and finally says, “I'll go wherever you want to go, Dave.”

**three.**

A week goes by before they make their first night excursion, running territory along the edge of the city where they hadn't dared to go with the sun watching hot and hateful over their shoulders. She takes him to what used to be an estate, proud wrought iron and crumbling brick palisades standing tall in the folds of pearl-white dunes, where the wind billows thick, gleaming ribbons of sand across the courtyard and belts into their skin. She thinks it's gorgeous, says as much to him, and he doesn't respond.

They slip in through an open door and set to exploring, Jade taking the lead as they lose themselves in shadows and fumble through dark rooms. The house groans around them on the moors of its splintering, spidering foundation, and their voices stay hushed in return, as though they're afraid of waking it; a quiet, sour swear is all Dave spits when he bumps his shin against a china cabinet, a short giggle from Jade as she trips into a chair. Their first encounter with the terror coiling up in their chests is when Jade loses her footing and takes a tumble against a cabinet in the kitchen; the doors swing open and half a dozen copper pans spill out onto the tile, crashing like a gunshot that spins off the ceiling and clatters down the hall they came from, making the loudest sound either had heard since stepping foot on a planet full of graveyard silence.

He moves on instinct, pulling her into him with his left hand and drawing his sword with his right, pressing her against the wall and placing himself between the things he's sure are coming, the things that could pull shadows like a curtain with faces split by sharp-toothed grins. They stand like that, stone-still and breathing shallow, for seconds, minutes, what feels like ages until their hearts slow and the adrenaline leaves them tired.

“Let's just go,” he whispers, runs a check on her in the low light and feels what he might later describe as a stab of failure when he sees something black and wet trickling from her temple. “Shit, you're bleeding.”

“Dave, it's fine, we're already here! Let's keep exploring.”

“No, no, no. Jesus fucking Christ. We're leaving. Here.”

He presses his sleeve against the side of her head until the bleeding stops, then for the first time, laces their fingers together of his own accord, a grip tight enough to take the feeling from his fingertips by the time they make it back to her home.

**four.**

He hustles her into what used to be a post office when he notices the sun drop below the horizon, ticking off all the things he did wrong that kept them in the city for too long: he fell asleep when they took a break in the shade of a schoolyard, just half an hour but enough to set them back; he indulged Jade's whims too much, let her go running off to look into a broken storefront just to see what got left behind; he got lost in the maze of streets downtown, winding around the same six blocks like an idiot over and over. It's all his responsibility and he feels like a damn fool.

They settle onto a torn waiting couch, him on one end and her on the other; Jade sprawls out in seconds, reminding him of a cat the way she just unfolds, her head on the arm rest and one arm dangling off, one arm draping over the back, knees and legs over his lap. He's too tired to complain or move her.

They sit like that for awhile and he's about to drift off when she breaks the silence: “It's fine, right?”

He blinks a few times, rubs the corners of his eyes, and looks at her. “What's fine?”

“This. Staying here tonight. The city's empty, right? So it's fine?”

“Yeah,” he agrees, thinly, and she smiles at the bit of cold comfort. “Why ask me, though? I mean, don't you have tarot cards or whatever you can throw down? Maybe cut open a chicken or something?”

She laughs, reaches out for his shoulder to jab him lightly but misses. “You're so silly sometimes, Dave. I just know things, but I don't know everything!”

He leans his head back against the wall and the quiet white noise of the city swallows the conversation; time becomes seconds, or minutes, or hours, lost in the growing darkness and the shifting, shifting, shifting to get comfortable. Jade's half hanging off on her stomach when she gets up with a start, enough to alarm him but not enough to ask what's wrong.

“Dave?”

“What?”

She swings her legs off, curls them around the other way, and he feels her head settling into the crook of his neck, her arms around his waist. “I'm glad you're here.”

“Yeah, well.” He shifts, unsure of what to do with his hands. “Someone has to make sure something gets done in this game.”

**five.**

He's woken by cold fingers threading through his hair, pulling at his clothes, and he's ready with a sharp “Jade!” only for the fingers to pull at his lips and his cheeks when he opens his mouth, the taste like gravel and oil and fire--

Adrenaline flares hot and angry through his veins and he tears them away, feels his clothes get spattered with something wet and foul and he's holding something that's not attached to anything anymore; it fills him with a primal sort of satisfaction, grinning with a clenched jaw.

The things have finally come, the things that can pull shadows like curtains with faces split by sharp-toothed grins. He takes his sword and time slows to a cold-honey crawl; he splits their grins wider and wider until they burst like black bubbles, over and over again, until he hears nothing but the wind carrying quiet.

It's in the fading of battle that he counts his breaths, and it's somewhere between five and six that he realizes Jade is gone. It's somewhere between six and seven that he bursts full-tilt into the street, looking and looking and looking to find a shock of black hair and waiting to hear her call out, to laugh, to anything. It's somewhere between twelve and thirteen that he feels a sharp pain welling up in his gut and the stomach-sick feeling that she's dead and he killed her.

He scrambles around street corners until morning comes, shouting her name as long and loud as he can until his voice is too thick and sore to carry far enough to matter.

**six.**

|PESTERLOG|  
\--turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering gardenGnostic [GG]--

TG: jade  
TG: answer me  
TG: for fuck's sake  
TG: just look at your computer  
TG: do you even have your computer with you?  
TG: shit  
TG: if there was any time for you to be psychic and weird  
TG: this would be it  
TG: so if you could come flying out of a back alley or something  
TG: anytime now  
TG: that would be great  
TG: goddamnit jade  
TG: please

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering gardenGnostic [GG] --

**seven.**

|PESTERLOG|  
\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] --

TG: john  
TG: john  
TG: have you heard from jade?  
TG: fuck  
TG: shit  
TG: fuck  
TG: like this game could possibly get worse  
TG: first she wants to wade out into a nuclear wasteland like goddamn priscilla, queen of the desert  
TG: now i lose her  
TG: i dont see her and shes not answering  
TG: how do you even lose someone who sleeps like twenty hours a day  
TG: god  
TG: what if shes like  
TG: does she even have any weapons?  
EB: whoa, hey!  
EB: calm down.  
EB: i'm sure she's fine!  
EB: i bet she just found something cool to show you and she's on her way back.  
TG: yeah youre right  
TG: she probably saw a butterfly on a planet with no life and went flailing after it or whatever  
TG: even though apparently this place is fucking crawling with these shadow douches  
TG: im sure shes fine  
TG: i just fucking killed our witch  
EB: don't blame yourself!  
EB: i think jade can take care of herself better than you think.  
TG: just keep an eye out  
EB: you know i will.  
TG: thanks man  
EB: btw...  
EB: priscilla was the bus.  
EB: not a person.  
TG: john  
TG: jesus fucking christ  
TG: i dont care if the bus was rosebud  
TG: i just need to find jade  
EB: i know. i'm sorry.  
EB: i'll tell rose.  
EB: we'll find her, dave!

**eight.**

Breathing in the minutes becomes agony right around hour thirty-two.

His voice is slipping from him, strained and cracked and barely a flutter of paper in the wind when he calls for her, but it doesn't stop him; he yells it again and again and again until his gums and his tongue dry and he tastes the tang of copper when he closes his mouth. He licks his chapped lips, waits for the sting to fade, fills his lungs with fire, and calls for her until the feeling of burning from the inside out is too much to take.

Then he repeats it all da capo twelve more times.

He has to fight with himself to take a break. Weak on his legs, he pulls himself shaking into the backseat of a half-gutted sedan, limbs tingling, muscles taut and twitching, head swimming in a deep, throbbing ache. Water, he remembers; he hasn't been drinking enough, too much running and shouting and not enough taking care of priorities. (_Or maybe too much of that, too._) He drinks half the bottle without pause and it drags down his throat like sandpaper, bucking nausea in his empty stomach. He pinches the bridge of his nose until it passes.

Thirty-six hours and he collects himself, climbs out of the car, fills his lungs with fire, and calls for her until all the sagging buildings in the city know her name.

**nine.**

He sees a leaning basilica, still regal even as it sinks into a crumbling decay, thinks to look for Jade inside because it's old and sad and pretty and he knows she finds an inexplicable comfort in those things. He takes ginger steps around colored sprays of stained glass scattered on the floor, looks for footsteps in the thick coating of dust, searches up and up and up a tower until the stairs end in a dead drop three stories below. After an hour, he stops, decides it's time to nurse his headache, and settles against the cool stone wall of an alcove. He closes his eyes, counts the seconds and minutes because it's natural to him now, feels the spin of the planet as it ticks on through an artificial cycle as easy as breathing, and in this moment he hates and loves the game for giving him something to hold onto.

After eleven minutes and nineteen seconds, he hears the groaning of tall, ancient doors open, then footsteps muted by dust, and he's already up and running.

“_Jade?_” he yells; the vibration of his own voice makes his head hurt and he doesn't care, shouting it every time he winds around a corner. He sees her there at the entrance, standing in the sunlight, bright and grinning and caked with dirt and grime and he's never been happier in his life. She throws herself into him and squeezes, exaggerating every bruise and cut he's accumulated in the last two days, and his only protest is letting out a long, shaky breath as he pulls her in closer.

“I missed you so much,” she says into his shoulder and he doesn't respond, only pries her away with his hands on her upper arms, looking her up and down, checking for injuries. She laughs, murmurs that she's fine, he shouldn't worry, and he shakes his head.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, weaving their fingers together; he feels the corners of his mouth twitch into a grin, and he lets them, feels like he deserves a celebration at this point.

“Just, you know, killing time, waiting for Egbert and Lalonde to stop making out with each other and get their slow asses through the gate.” He spins her around to face him and she takes the movement gracefully, like a dancer, glass clinking under her feet like music. “Seriously, what do you think? You're like an hour and a half late to the party. I've been looking for you. What are _you_ doing here?”

She lets go of his hand and walks down an aisle between scattered pews, looking up at the empty windows rimmed with jagged color. “I came because I thought it was pretty.”

He shoulders up beside her, looking where her eyes are looking, trying, if only briefly, to see the world like she does. “Don't you think that's fucked up, Jade? This isn't a museum or some shit where you just stroll from exhibit to exhibit and touch everything and get kicked out. Everyone's dead. It's not a game.”

He pauses.

“It _is_ a game. But it's not.”

She runs her fingers through the dust along the tilted lectern and smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. He regrets saying it. “Is it really that bad? I just thought...Well, everything got left behind. You see how everyone died, and that's sad, it really is. It's the saddest thing. But then you see how everyone lived, too, and that's what makes it beautiful.”

He considers her words for a moment, and then he makes a decision.

With a hand on her waist, a hand curling into her hair, fingers splayed, he pulls her in and kisses her, and everything in the world is right.

And then everything in the world turns wrong.

He notices the taste first, sharp in the back of his teeth, a tang of copper and metal and electricity and he pushes her away like he's been bitten, steps back and looks at her, _looks at her_, sees her glazed eyes, sees shadows boil and quiver and fan out into wings; he steps back, limbs locked, frozen and hesitating and by the time he pulls out his sword, she's surrounded, consumed, reaching out for him.

He feels it before he knows it's there, claws at his back tearing wet, fatty gashes through his jacket, the shrieking pain—_it's not the pain that's shrieking, it's him, it's her, it's him, it's her, it's her, it's her_

He snaps awake, chokes in a bitter breath as his stomach knots, his jaw throbs, his throat constricts, and he scrambles to his knees, dry-heaving at the feet of a statue over and over until he feels like his ribs are shattering. He wipes his mouth on his sleeve, head clear enough now to hear a distant rhythm; he thinks it's the sound of her shoes as she's running, running towards him or running from a grinning shadow, a pounding, steady cadence on fractured concrete. He cringes when the realization dawns that his veneer of composure is blistering in the sun, that he's pushed himself too hard, that it's only his own heartbeat.

He rubs his face with the last of his water, presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, snakes his fingers up into his hair and tugs, hard.

Four hours later, hour fifty-seven, after heading back into the city proper and long since giving the basilica wide berth, his teeth still buzz with the tang of copper and metal and electricity.

**ten.**

|PESTERLOG|  
\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] –

TT: Dave.  
TT: I need to talk to you.  
TT: Urgently.  
TT: If you would, at your earliest convenience, kindly crawl out of whatever yawning existential fissure you seem to have tumbled into ass over teakettle, it would be incredibly helpful.  
TT: I have a rather distressed companion on my hands who seems to think both you and Jade are dead, and I am close to exhausting my admittedly limited repertoire of mollification techniques short of rendering him unconscious.  
TT: It's honestly all I can do to keep John on the ground. You know how he is.  
\-- turntechGodhead [TG] is now an idle chum! --  
TT: Where the hell are you?  
TT: Answer us.  
TT: Please.

**eleven.**

When the flashing in the corner of his glasses becomes a little too much like psychological warfare for him to handle, he pulls them off, folds them, and slips them neatly into the breast pocket of his suit.

The city _gleams_ in the harsh afternoon sunlight; his eyes, too attuned for too long to the conveniences of dark lenses, have trouble adjusting, and he spends the next twenty minutes stumbling through the streets half-blind, squinting against a watery haze and blinking through spots in his vision.

**twelve.**

It's early morning, seventy-five hours, forty-two minutes, twenty-nine seconds since she fell off the grid, and there's something about time now that he just feels down in the marrow of his bones, a finality he refuses to accept even exists; he's out of supplies, out of energy, voice dead, nails dirty and bleeding and the skin on his hands raw and shredded from clawing into buildings from the rubble.

He pauses in the street when he hears the quick, roaring staccato of a gunshot. It's real this time, not a dream, not his heartbeat, and he bolts off on straining legs, following a sound that can't be captured as its vagaries fly from rooftop to rooftop and echo down the street.

He stops, breathes, nurses his side, and hears a second shot, closer this time, close enough to pinpoint it. He tears towards the library, doesn't think he's run as fast or as hard in his life; it takes him forty-two seconds to reach the doors, one to pull them open, and he yells her name at the top of his lungs, the top of his weak, strained voice, every footstep he takes inside.

The third shot scatters like thunder above him and he's running to the staircase, heart in his throat, sword in his hand; he takes the stairs three at a time, holding his balance against the wall, nails dragging red streaks like fingerpaint. He pauses at the top, looks around the mezzanine, then he hears the fourth gunshot ringing in his ears and he knows he's found her.

After seventy-five hours, forty-four minutes, and fifty-four seconds, the shadow looming over her, wings spread, teeth bared, is _nothing_, means nothing and comes to nothing; he jumps, finds purchase on its back, thrusts his sword into the base of its neck, and tears down until it falls, until the only things left of it are the black, oily flecks on his suit.

He's breathing deep and heavy, and so is she, and for a moment, that's the only noise in the room—until she picks up her rifle, levels it at him, and he thinks the look on his face might be of betrayal.

He flips his sword upside-down, resting the blade flat from wrist to elbow, as he holds his hands out in what he hopes is nonthreatening. “Okay, Jade, seriously. It's just me. It's Dave. Put the gun down. I know you're a little weird and crazy sometimes, but this is completely backflipping off the fucking ship overboard.”

She doesn't put the gun down.

She pulls the trigger.

He feels a warm splatter against his back, looks over his shoulder and sees a black mess dripping down a column, down the wall, and he hangs his head, feels a hysterical sort of laughter bubble up from his gut; he manages a short, curt _holy shit_, a manic grin, and then he moves to her, drops his sword, takes her in his arms and pulls her close and tight.

His voice is a whisper because that's all he can manage: “Never. Again. Okay? I will just fucking lose my shit if I ever have to do this for you again.”

She squirms in his grip, nuzzles into his neck, smiles against his shoulder. They stand like that, stone-still, listening to the white noise of the city, the off-kilter rhythm of their heartbeats and quiet breathing, when she finally breaks the silence: “Are you okay?”

He's _done_. He hasn't had water in too long, hasn't had food or sleep in longer, and there are only so many miracles adrenaline and tempered determination can perform; in the last hours, he was fighting off exhaustion of belief more than exhaustion of body, that deep and horrible feeling that ate at him until he wasn't sure what he was doing anymore.

He knows he has wounds to tend to, bruises that will spiral and blossom and stretch across his skin in a few days, cuts packed with dirt that might go to infection if he leaves them too long. Even when they fade, he's not sure how long he's going to keep dreaming of the shock of copper and metal and electricity, of the heartsick feeling that she's gone and it's his fault.

He buries his face in her hair just to make sure it's not another dream.

“_No_,” he breathes, finally.

**thirteen.**

|PESTERLOG|  
\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] --

TT: So, what is this I've been hearing about dazzling heroics?   
TG: i have no idea what youre talking about  
TT: Really? Well. I suppose the grapevine can't always be unflinchingly accurate.  
TT: But the words I've heard gallivanting through it have included: "sooooo coooool."  
TT: Also, "the greatest."  
TT: I must admit that these aren't direct quotes, but I find myself incapable of leaving certain gelatinous masses of unnecessary exclamation points unaltered.  
TG: no see  
TG: i know what this is  
TG: this is police interrogation shit  
TG: where you swagger in with your cup of coffee and your token silent partner  
TG: who just stands there in the corner with his arms crossed and this perpetually constipated look on his face  
TG: like he might literally shit bricks if i dont cooperate  
TG: and you try to get me to give up where i stashed the loot by tricking me into thinking you already know  
TG: fuck no  
TG: ive seen law and order  
TG: and im not nearly retarded enough to fall for this   
TT: No, that's not it at all.  
TG: right  
TG: youre just getting all up in my business for no reason  
TG: and in no way are you trying to conjure up some ridiculous goatshit profile based on what i say  
TG: because you dont dream of having freuds horrific cthulhuan lovechildren or anything  
TT: I'll ignore the heavy-handed sarcasm in favor of cutting right into the meat of the matter, which is, quite simply, curiosity.  
TT: I find myself utterly flabbergasted by your behavior.  
TT: You dipped into three full days of complete radio silence while you scoured a barren, post-apocalyptic hellscape in search of a lost comrade without any regard for personal safety.  
TT: Under most circumstances, when given an opportunity for masturbatory ego-stroking, you are, shall I say, all over it.  
TT: Now, with the chance to trumpet your deeds and exalt your good name to the heavens, you seem surprisingly cagey and almost humble about the entire affair.  
TG: what do you even want me to say  
TG: do you want me to puke my feelings everywhere like tori amos lyrics  
TG: would that satisfy your monumental craving for schaudenfreude  
TG: why dont i just cut open an artery and you can feed off of that  
TT: Don't be ridiculous. I know you far too well to believe for a moment you'd indulge in such plebian customs as human emotion.  
TT: Nor do I enjoy gorging myself on your suffering, or, for that matter, blood.  
TT: I'm here as your friend, despite your bulldogged aggression towards the entire concept of mutual camaraderie.  
TT: It's just heartwarming to see that you've immersed yourself so deeply in your game-given role of the White Knight.  
TT: Or perhaps the game simply knew it was always inside you, caked with layer upon layer of emotional accidie, snide insolence, and irrelevant pop culture.  
TG: yeah thanks for the staggering insight montel  
TT: See? That is exactly what I mean.  
TT: I attempt a serious conversation with you and you promptly endeavor to stonewall me into submission with your predictable defense mechanisms.  
TG: seriously what relevance does this have on anything  
TG: what criteria does this even satisfy in your gordian clusterfuck of devious plans  
TG: yeah so i kind of flipped my shit  
TG: big fucking deal  
TG: excuse me for not wanting one of my friends to die  
TG: again  
TT: I'm simply impressed at the extreme measures you defaulted to in a moment of crisis.  
TT: It seems the axiom that adversity introduces a man to himself has been proven correct.  
TT: Given that Jade seems quite taken with you, I think it's sweet how you handled the situation.  
TG: you think its sweet  
TG: great  
TG: thanks jade  
TG: its awesome how you just regurgitate whatever pops up in your head  
TT: I wouldn't take offense to it. She's always been very complimentary about you.  
TT: Maddeningly so, even.  
TT: I've gone so far as to warn her that she's too quick to oblige the demands of your leviathan ego, though she never listened.  
TT: I'd say she's your biggest fan.  
TG: goddamn you talk so much  
TG: lets get back to whats actually important  
TG: what did she tell you besides how fucking amazing i am  
TT: Nothing of drastic import.  
TG: see i dont buy that  
TG: this is you being all coy and evasive  
TT: I am never any less than completely devoted to the ideal of steadfast honesty.  
TT: I am an open book.  
TG: yeah sure whatever  
TG: and im frank t hopkins  
TT: You do bear a striking resemblance.  
TG: did she tell you that i didnt sleep for more than fifteen goddamn minutes  
TG: or eat anything  
TG: or that i still havent gotten my fucking voice back  
TG: she probably even mentioned hugging her  
TG: fuck me  
TG: im just going to find a revolver  
TG: and for every stone cold humiliating thing jade has said about me  
TG: thats how many goddamn bullets im jamming into the chamber  
TG: youre good at math  
TG: what are the chances that i can eat this hypothetical gun and live  
TG: im putting money on zero  
TT: Your impromptu session of Russian Roulette would only be a futile series of clicks, Dave.  
TT: In short, one hundred percent.  
TT: She hasn't told me anything.  
TT: I've yet to even speak with her.  
TT: Though now it seems unnecessary, given how generously you've volunteered information.  
TG: sweet fucking christ  
TT: And to think I accomplished it without coffee or a token partner.  
TT: Don't worry, Dave.  
TT: Your secret is safe with me.  
TG: yeah im sure  
TG: its just between you me and your journal  
TG: memorialized on a laundry list the size of my bulge with all my character defects  
TT: Don't flatter yourself.  
TG: yeah well  
TG: as much as i like getting played like a total tool  
TG: ive got more important shit to do  
TG: like eviscerating myself in pure unadulterated shame  
TT: Remember, it's left to right.  
TT: Good luck.  
TG: yeah i think i got it  
TT: And Dave?  
TG: what  
TT: I just want you to know that I admire what you did.  
TT: And I am sincerely relieved that Jade is in good hands.  
TG: yeah well  
TG: thanks  
TG: and seriously  
TG: dont tell anyone  
TT: You have my word.  
TG: later

\-- tentacleTherapist [TT] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] –-

**coda.**

It takes two weeks before he concedes to her begging to return to the city, and he's glad she doesn't resent him for it, because it's getting harder and harder for him to deny her anything.

She takes him by the hand through the winding streets of a city left to dust, shows him things he saw yet didn't see when he walked and walked for three full days: sunbleached statues with wind-worn features, upright with pieces missing; skyscrapers jutting from the ruins, standing tall against the sunsick orange sky; tiny little resilient sprouts under the merry-go-round in the park, an art gallery with waterstained paintings on the walls, the proud colonnades on a falling monument.

They share a window ledge, sitting together with legs dangling out, and look over the city together. She turns to him, his hand in hers as she plays with the valleys of his knuckles with her thumb for reasons only she knows, and breaks the silence.

“It's so pretty, don't you think?”

He has an answer for her for once, making up for all the times before where he didn't: “Yeah. It is.”

A look of sheer delight spreads over her face and she nods, a full-teeth smile and eyelids pulled in mirth.

**zero.**

|PESTERLOG|  
\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering gardenGnostic [GG] --

TG: your house creeps me the fuck out  
TG: im sorry  
TG: but however much of a gargantuan badass your grandfather was  
TG: he was and still is equally creepy as all hell  
GG: huh???  
GG: its not creepy!!  
GG: its perfectly normal  
GG: you are being so ridiculous!!!!!!!!  
TG: im sitting here watching your soulless robot typing  
TG: specifically typing what YOURE typing  
TG: in your head  
TG: but cant physically type  
TG: because youre asleep  
TG: i dare anyone to not be creeped out by this shit playing out in front of me  
TG: uncanny valley wishes it was your bedroom right now  
TG: stephen king would be moved to suicide  
GG: ._.  
GG: what are you doing in my bedroom?  
GG: there are other rooms in my house you know! &lt;_&lt;  
GG: i told you you could go anywhere you wanted!  
TG: where the hell else is there to go  
GG: -___-  
TG: no really  
TG: i could spend the rest of the day sneezing in your greenhouse  
TG: or get lost in a medieval theme restaurant storage room  
TG: or yeah i could chill with your stuffed grandfather  
TG: that seems like a stellar idea  
TG: why do you always say the dumbest shit when youre asleep  
GG: hey!!  
GG: why do you always say the meanest stuff when you are awake???  
TG: ask the taxidermists wet dream a couple floors down  
TG: i wasnt feeling particularly ornery until i realized i had like a thousand dead glass eyes staring at me  
TG: when id rather wander out into satans sandy asscrack than be in your house  
TG: something is wrong on a fundamental level  
TG: so seriously  
TG: wake up already  
GG: you know i cant wake up on command! &gt;:O  
GG: ill wake up when im good and ready mr bossy pants!!!!!!  
TG: bossy pants  
TG: honestly  
TG: god nevermind  
TG: ill talk to you when you wake up  
TG: too bad you wont make even a fraction more sense then  
GG: hehehehe  
GG: dont be mad at me dave! &lt;3  
GG: well go out there soon!!  
GG: and itll be a little sad...and scary........  
GG: but kinda fun!  
GG: and when we go out there we might not see each other for awhile!!  
GG: you might get really worried but it will be okay, i promise  
GG: and you should know that i trust you &lt;3  
TG: yeah see thats what im talking about  
TG: none of that shit made any sense at all  
TG: its like talking to an excitable ouija board  
GG: hehehe  
GG: see you when i wake up! &lt;3&lt;3&lt;3  
TG: good night  
TG: i guess

~fin

﻿ 


End file.
